Phased Naval Construction Categorisation Initiative
One could be forgiven for thinking the ship classifications fielded by the UNSC during the Human-Covenant War were produced haphazardly, or for uses that differed wildly from their designations. Part of this was expediency – pace combat was an untested concept when it was formed during the Interplanetary Wars, and throughout much of the so-called “Golden Age of Colonisation” the only threats it faced were internal solar ones. Even the CMA faced largely scattered bands of pirates. The majority of pre-Insurrection deployments for search-and-rescue operations. The Insurrection was an eye-opening experience for the UNSC, where it found itself faced with an enemy with a considerable space presence of its own, and was forced to adapt. Worse still was the Covenant, the sheer numerical and firepower advantage of which came is a shock to all involved. Taking these into account, it becomes clear that the UNSC has struggled to adapt its existing naval forces to new purposes, with varying degrees of success. Implemented in 2552 with the beginning of new construction in the post-war era, the Phased Space Combat Construction Initiative was an attempt by the Navy to explain these difficulties, to categorise the different waves of naval construction and doctrine that accompanied these dynamic shifts, and to highlight the difficulties it faced adapting to entirely new concepts. In addition, it was hoped that it would highlight the enormous progress made by post-war research and development in putting the lessons learned to good use as the Navy underwent a sweeping modernisation program of new construction and refit to bring its combat effectiveness up to parity with the patchwork Covenant remnant fleets it found itself faced with. Categorisation Phase One: 2163-2490 Begun at the onset of the Jovian Moons Campaign, and lasting for the next 327 years, it marked the adoption of a doctrine of naval strategy that emphasised troop transport and fleet escort. The hostile forces at the time, the far-right Frieden and the far-left Koslovics held relatively few exoatmospheric assets, and their campaigns were largely localised, until the Rainforest Wars, which involved infiltration rather than invasion. The UNSC Navy of the day was primarily concerned with transporting the United Nations Space Command peacekeeper troops deployed to settle the uprisings on the Jovian moons, though the need for an orbit-to-surface support element was highlighted by the Argyre Planitia Campaign. The conduct of the Interplanetary War was, as its retroactive name suggests, the first interplanetary war fought by humanity, and it highlighted the combat potential and need of spacecraft that had, until them, only been hypothesised. With the conclusion of the war at the Callisto Conference and the signing of the Callisto Treaty the Navy found itself entering a period that has been characterised by the mainstream historical academia as a peaceful one. In fact the period between the launching of the Odyssey and the onset of the Insurrection was characterised by the emergency of eclectic scattered colonisation, often vulnerable to pirates setting up bases in remote colonies and preying on shipping passing through system-to-system trade routes that would later be made obsolete by further developments of Shaw-Fujikawa Translight technology. During this time, the UNSC Navy remained largely a localised force dedicated to policing and protecting the Solar System, while colonial trade and commerce was the oversight of the CAA and CMA, which engaged in merchant escort and piracy suppression operations. As Slipspace drives gained more and more reach and shorter transit times, and the trade routes became shorter and less vulnerable to piracy, the CMA found less and less pirate activity. It would never be entirely stamped out, and during the Insurrection would reemerge with a vengeance, but it is unfair of modern historians to lambast it for its failings during the Insurrection without remembering its superb conduct protecting humanity’s rapid expansion. Phase Two: 2490-2525 The outbreak of the Insurrection was hardly unanticipated, but the sheer scale of opposition took many establishment figures by surprise, especially the mass defections of entire military units. In three centuries, the UNSC had never fought against an enemy with comparable space combat elements. Pirates are rarely known for their willingness to deploy large, powerful ships, preferring large cargo holds, speed and surprise. The CMA faced a massive doctrine shift that partially explains its initial ineffectiveness in preventing the Insurrectionist gains. Recognising that it needed a complete overhaul of its naval doctrine, the CMA began construction of new designs intended for engaging comparable enemies, increasing armour thickness, firepower and ammunition stores, and acceleration rates. Navy ships would still heavily favour orbital support, especially against ground-based militias and paramilitary forces, but it was discovering it was woefully unprepared for true space combat. Before the Insurrection, the heaviest warship class in service was the Gorgon-class heavy destroyer, equipped with a handful of missiles and a single Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, with only three rounds. Phase Two designs would introduce the MAC as the standard for anything larger than a corvette and increase the number of missiles carried to a radical degree, as well as introduce designs for cruisers, a new concept for a space fighting force. Until the introduction of the Vindication-class light battleship, the largest fighting warship class humanity could field was the cruiser and the carrier. Capital ship combat would still be a far-off dream when fighting a highly distributed enemy with a small industrial base but wide popular support which depended on defection or capture to expand or replenish its naval forces. While the CMA was faced with the prospect of refitting an aging fleet for new mission parameters, the UNSC faced no obstacle. It had always received preferential treatment in the UEG budget, and had already begun replacing its smaller fleet with state-of-the-art vessels by the time the UEG had decided the CMA was inadequate to fight the Insurrection, and had begun work on the Orbital Defence Grid to protect Earth itself. When it took to the battlefield in Operation TREBUCHET, it was with a fleet of dedicated warships that outmatched the majority of the Insurrection’s fighting space forces, which consisted largely of ad hoc conversions. The UNSC relegated its acquisitions as it incorporated the CMA into itself into homefront roles, freeing up newer, more effective warships for frontline duty. More importantly, the CMA had filled its ranks with conscription the same colonies it was now fighting, creating an environment rife with corruption and security leaks. The UNSC was still largely Sol-based, had rigorous screening protocols, and accepted only volunteers, which swelled in numbers as momentum swung back in favour of Earth. Defections would continue, including the high-profile and embarrassing defection of Colonel Robert Watts to the Eridanus Insurrection, but the flow of materiel and intelligence was largely cut off. Phase Three: 2525-2552 It is one of history’s greatest ironies that the discovery of an intensely xenocidal alien enemy occurred as the UNSC was at its most prepared. The CMA was finally totally disbanded in 2525, and the UNSC Navy was winning battle after battle in space against the Insurrection. The attack on Harvest came totally unexpected, and rocked the military community of loyalist and revolutionary alike. Seeing the example of Second Base, proving Harvest was not an isolated incident, popular support for the Insurrection imploded virtually overnight. Between an overly-regulatory Earth-based government and plasma bombardment, the choice was obvious. Insurrectionist cells would continue to operate throughout the Human-Covenant War, but with the exception of a few zealots the majority realised that, like it or not, the UNSC was the only thing standing between them and the Covenant. Despite its extensive construction and modernisation projects, the UNSC still found itself totally outmatched by its new enemy. Firstly, the Covenant held a technological advantage, using highly accurate Slipspace drives for improved fleet coordination, incredibly powerful plasma, laser and particle-accelerator weapons at considerable range, and extremely effective energy shielding; secondly, they held the numerical advantage, with a vast fleet in reserve to replenish its combat losses quickly; thirdly, the ship tonnages the Covenant fielded dramatically overshadowed their UNSC counterparts – roughly analogous ship classes routinely out-massed their UNSC counterparts, and the Covenant produced capital ships in much larger numbers and tonnages than the UNSC. Faced with such an enemy, the UNSC was faced with two options: a qualitative upgrade, or a quantitative one. In the end, it had no choice but to adopt a mixture of both. For most of the war, UNSC construction focussed on producing frigates, destroyers and cruisers in larger numbers, relying on higher numbers to stall the enemy’s advance. Research and development products received increased budgets, but would produce mixed results during the war itself. The most successful of these was the development of the refitted Halcyon-class light cruiser, which would represent a substantial qualitative increase over its predecessors and combat successes against the Covenant during their limited deployments. Unfortunately, they entered service only in the last year of the war, and were wiped out during the defence of Reach and Earth, though they would be the conceptual basis of the post-war Autumn-class heavy cruisers. The UNSC Infinity would serve as a test bed for new technologies and concepts that the UNSC hoped to introduce into wider service, including directed energy weapons, an advanced Slipspace drive, and energy shields. Even though technological advances would be made in leaps and bounds, and began to enter service as the war progressed, these only saw limited service due to the sheer attritional losses inflicted by the Covenant, and the destruction of construction infrastructure as the enemy moved into the Inner Colonies, forcing the UNSC to rely on numbers and superior tactics and strategy. Certainly the quality of its naval officers over their Covenant counterparts, who relied largely on brute force and reported directly to conservative civilian caste leadership, was never in doubt, at least until Reach, where the degree of naval finesse shown surprised the UNSC. Phase Four: 2552-ongoing With the implementation of the PSCCI, the UNSC Navy embarked on an ambitious rearmament campaign to restore its military strength in the post-war political landscape. For the first time, the UNSC introduced large non-carrier capital ships, the Vindication-class light battleship, a dedicated ship-to-ship weapons platform, and the UNSC Infinity, which, despite being a test bed, remains the most powerful warship ever constructed by humanity. The Marathon-class heavy cruiser had been almost totally wiped out, rendering the issue of refitting them for post-war service a moot point. In their place, the UNSC introduced the Autumn-class heavy cruiser, based heavily on the refitted 2552 Halcyon-class light cruisers with some modifications, and continued production of its lighter destroyer and frigate classes with upgrade and modification packages that increased Slipspace efficiency and finally introduced energy shields into widespread service. These changes were largely developed during the war, but had faced nearly insurmountable problems in implementation. With a decimated fleet to replace, a tentative peace with the Sangheili and a Covenant too focussed on fighting each other than humanity, the UNSC found itself with significant breathing room, and used this opportunity to launch new construction and modernisation on an unprecedented, massive scale. These two technology introductions finally reduced the combat disparity between human and Covenant ships, ironically just as the Covenant was fragmenting into a patchwork of various warlords and successor states, the majority of its capital ships either wrecked, crippled, or consolidated by the Sangheili, an ostensible ally of the UNSC. In the post-war period, the UNSC Navy has also had to return to suppressing Insurrectionist activity – with the onset of supposed peace, the many secessionist groups with an axe to grind against an Earth they resented for supposedly abandoning them emerged across the remaining Outer Colonies. With Earth’s devastated economy, and still struggling to restore combat effectiveness, the Insurrection has proven as entrenched as ever. Worse, the possibility and reality of Covenant assistance has produced significant threats to the navy, including attempts to acquire Covenant naval combat ships, and alliances with Covenant mercenary organisations still possessing a naval element. Lacking the technical or industrial strength of humanity, the various Covenant groups struggle to maintain their fleet strength. Humanity is accustomed to building their own ships, and understands the scientific principles they employ. The Covenant, who had always relied exclusively on the Prophets for their technological superiority, lacked that. Worse, virtually the entire Huragok population either disappeared or was secured by the UNSC, depriving the Covenant factions of their only means of continued development. Construction facilities were heavily fought over during the Great Schism and most were devastated, though a handful remain, most in the possession of the Arbiter’s Sangheili faction. These facilities have limited berths and construction rates, and require heavy protection against other Covenant warlords or human infiltration. For the most part, Covenant fleets are forced to turn to repairing ancient, decommissioned and nearly obsolete ships to fill their rants, such as the CRS-class light cruiser that Jul ‘Mdama and his allied forces have largely adopted – small, fast and available in large numbers, despite its fragility and miniscule tonnage even compared to human classes. In such an environment, humanity has found itself in the rather unexpected position of possessing naval pre-eminence in the Orion Arm, where before it had been a minnow up against a shark. Ship Classes Phase One * Phoenix-class colony ship * Mako-class corvette Phase Two * F41 Broadsword multirole fighter * Prowler-class stealth corvette * Eclipse-class prowler * Razor-class prowler * Winter-class prowler * Stalwart-class light frigate * Charon-class light frigate * Gorgon-class destroyer * Halcyon-class light cruiser * Marathon-class heavy cruiser * Atlas-class carrier * Trafalgar-class supercarrier Phase Three * YSS-1000 Saber interceptor * ONI PRO-49776 * Point of No Return-class stealth cruiser * Paris-class heavy frigate * Strident-class heavy frigate * Iroquois-class destroyer * Halcyon-class light cruiser (2552 refit) * UNSC Infinity Phase Four * Sahara-class heavy prowler * Autumn-class heavy cruiser * Poseidon-class light carrier * Vindication-class light battleship Remarks * “I spent so long seeing our ships get swatted out of the sky like flies by bigger, meaner ships. It feels cathartic to see us doing it for a change. We really are the giants now.” * “You see the Vindications? They’re nearly half again as massive as the Autumns, and can go toe-to-toe with the big Covenant ships. Not that we see a lot of those these days, ironically.” * “Yeah, so we have an insurrection-suppressing fleet when the Covenant attack, and when we finally shift to capital ships the Insurrection comes back. Talk about a kick in the teeth.” * “Humanity has adapted well to its new status as Reclaimers. But give us time. This is only a temporary setback. We serve the Ancient Ones, and their will guides us.” Category:UNSC